With Dusty May at the helm, the Big Ten Tournament championship and Sweet Sixteen run aren’t flashes in the pan. Here are three reasons why the Michigan Wolverines will have sustained success under May:
The 2024-25 college basketball season is over for the Michigan Wolverines, and to say tDusty May’s first year in Ann Arbor was a success would be an understatement.
Despite only bringing back two rotation players from a 2023-24 that won eight games, the Wolverines tripled their win total and stayed in contention for the Big Ten title for nearly the entire season. The Wolverines won the same amount of games in this year’s Big Ten Tournament than they did in all of conference play last season. They won the tournament and earned a 5-seed in March Madness, advancing all the way to the Sweet Sixteen before falling to No. 1 Auburn .
After covering the team all season long, it feels fair to say this wasn’t a flash in the pan.
Yes, Michigan’s rotation was mostly transfers, and the Wolverines will be without at least two starters next season in Vlad Goldin — the team’s leading scorer — and Rubin Jones. The squad is also expecting to lose Danny Wolf to the NBA Draft .
That production will be difficult to replace, but as Michigan turns the page, the story of the restoration of this program is just beginning and the future of the program remains bright.
Here are three reasons May will have sustained success at Michigan.
Thriving in the chaos that is the transfer portal
Five of Michigan’s eight rotation players — Goldin, Wolf, Jones, Roddy Gayle Jr. and Tre Donaldson — came from the transfer portal, with May going to work as soon as he was hired .
Navigating the portal is a new reality for college coaches, and in a time where it feels like a new coach is complaining about the portal every week, May has embraced the chaos and has found success.
That adaptability is part of what makes May a great coach. When you combine that talent acquisition with solid game plans and in-game adjustments, the Wolverines thrived late in games.
After a season where the program proved that transfers can thrive and be stars at Michigan, more and more guys in the portal are going to want to play for May.
Developing players, unlike his predecessor
It can’t be forgotten that Juwan Howard made it to an Elite Eight and a Sweet Sixteen at the start of his tenure, even though the ending was rather ugly.
That said, I’d argue Howard’s biggest weakness as a coach was his inability to develop players. Granted, Beilein is a tough act to follow from a development standpoint, but Howard pushed away arguably the best strength coach the program has ever had and didn’t develop top ranked players.
Like Beilein, player development appears to be one of May’s biggest strengths. The players absolutely deserve most of the credit, but Wolf developed into a first-round pick , Goldin stayed efficient on both ends with more than a few offensive outbursts , role players like Tschetter and Nimari Burnett thrived, and freshman L.J. Cason turned into a key bench piece with the potential to do even more next year.
Players who come to Michigan can improve drastically, which is a major factor May and the staff can use when pursuing transfers and recruits.
Recruiting trail success
Speaking of recruits, a good freshman class will join the Wolverines next season. The class is headlined by Trey McKenney , May’s first five-star recruit, with a pair of four-stars in guard Winters Grady and forward Oscar Goodman .
That McKenney recruitment is a tone setter for the recruiting future of the program. The state of Michigan is a basketball recruiting hotbed, with tons of talent coming from Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids. While Tom Izzo has owned in-state recruiting, landing a player as good as McKenney takes some power away from MSU and gives it to Michigan.
May has attacked the recruiting trail with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind, to quote one of our great philosophers. That energy raises Michigan’s ceiling for years to come given how much May and his staff get out of their players.